Engaging With Manufacturing Customers at Enterprise World 2016

Well, has it really been two weeks since I attended the best customer conference event I have ever attended? That’s Enterprise World in Nashville where over 2,000 like-minded people came together. It really was a great event. Having only been in the company for 5 months it really accelerated my learning curve on so many levels.

But for me the most important thing was connection; putting a face and a handshake to people who have “virtually” been so helpful to me since I joined, and even more so, the chance to meet so many dedicated manufacturing customers from around the world who have invested in being with OpenText.

When companies like ours come together with their customers on any level, but particularly, at a face-to-face level it creates a powerful and empowering partnership.

So how did my first session go? Good considering I had to follow the best keynote I have ever heard, Commander Chris Hadfield, an inspirational speaker, and then there was lunch. So, many thanks to the customers and partners who attended the session.

From the start I wanted to promote our manufacturing group as customer-centric so I suggested some topics for consideration:

The manufacturing user group meeting should be a meeting between customers and for customers

It should provide an opportunity to build a community for connection, engagement and follow up

It should meet in person a minimum of once a year at Enterprise World as well as ”virtually” at other times

The group should offer the chance to develop working relationships

The meeting should provide a platform to kick off next steps for the year ahead

And provide the opportunity for customers to present and share the business themes they are addressing with OpenText solutions

The session was very productive with interesting discussions. Consensus was that the people in the room would like a forum on which to communicate amongst themselves and OpenText.

The customers suggested a good, ready-made and already popular platform could be a Linkedin Group. And if you are thinking Connect, Engage, and follow-up it was a great idea.

So OpenText in Manufacturing is about to happen! If interested please contact me at tleeson@opentext.com so you can be part of it from the very beginning – I hope you will join us.

Tom is Industry Marketing Strategist for the Manufacturing Sector globally.
An Engineer by Trade, and Mathematician by Education, Tom’s entire career has been spent in Engineering, Manufacturing and IT helping customers digitally transform their business and their manufacturing sector.
With Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things, Manufacturing lives in exciting times, so there is much to talk about.